Flexible and printed electronics is a revolutionary new concept for fabricating optoelectronic devices using high-throughput, inexpensive solution processes (e.g., printing methodologies) on flexible plastic foils, which contrasts sharply with the highly specialized and expensive facilities and equipment required for silicon fabrication. By using the appropriate materials, these technologies could enable inexpensive, lightweight, flexible, optically transparent, and unbreakable components for displays, cell phones, medical diagnostics, RFID tags, and solar modules which can then be integrated with textiles, printed batteries, solar cells, and aircraft and satellite structures. The enabling material component of all these technologies (among other essential materials) is the semiconductor where charge transport, light absorption, and/or light generation occur. To broaden device functionalities and applications, two types of semiconductors are required: p-type (hole-transporting) and n-type (electron-transporting). The use and combination of these two types of semiconductors enables the fabrication of elementary electronic building blocks for driving displays, harvesting light, generating light, carrying out logic operations, and sensor functions.
Several p- and n-channel molecular semiconductors have achieved acceptable device performance and stability. For example, OTFTs based on acenes and oligothiophenes (p-channel) and perylenes (n-channel) exhibit carrier mobilities (μ's)>1 cm2/Vs in ambient conditions. However, molecular semiconductors typically are less easily processable via printing methodologies than polymeric semiconductors due to solution viscosity requirements.
Accordingly, the art desires new semiconducting compounds, particularly those having good stability, processing properties, and/or charge transport characteristics in ambient conditions.